Lifeguard
by Indigo2831
Summary: Danny would never admit it, but he thought that Steve could survive anything.  Except a monkey-wrench to the face.
1. Chapter 1

I miss the show, as I'm sure we all do, so I'm writing to fill the void. A lot of you asked for hurt Steve, so here you go. I did my best.

I actually love the idea of this story. I hope I don't sound arrogant when I say that. The only problem it's very hard to write, because I'm terrified of the water, and I don't know how to swim, despite taking swimming lessons twice. I did as much research as I could, but any discrepancies are purely from my inexperience.

Please let me know what you think! Have a great holiday, set off lots of fireworks!

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><p><strong>Chapter 1<strong>

Steve discerned, by watching Danny with Grace, was that there were two fundamental principles of parenthood—you haul a lot of crap everywhere, and you are always anticipating every possible scenario that could transpire. Danny approached being a father like being a cop, and it was probably why he was so good at both.

He rolled his lips into his mouth, barely smothering a laugh, as he watched Danny, in black board shorts, fasten and tighten the straps on Grace's lifejacket and apply a third shellacking of sunscreen. He added goggles too, and then reached in his giant beach bag for water wings. It was then that Grace started to complain.

"I don't need those anymore. They're for babies." She whined quietly, her face contorted in disdain.

Danny frowned, torn. Steve didn't miss how his eyes flickered to the ocean and the rolling waves there. "But they'll help you."

"I can do it. Stan takes me out without them. He says I'm a good swimmer." Grace smiled. "We practiced doing laps in the pool."

Steve decided to intervene on the munchkin's behalf by reminding Danny that she wasn't going to be swimming with Step-Stan, but a trained professional. "I'm taking her out, _brah_. Putting those wings on her is kind of an insult. To both of us."

"I'm not worried about your massive ego, Steven, I'm worried about my kid." Danny clapped his hands over Grace's ears and shook his head wildly. "How many goofs on surfboards get killed every year? How many cute little kids become _amuse bouches_ for Great Whites?"

"She's not surfing. We're not even going that far out. I know about swimming, and I know these waves, Danny. She'll be fine."

Danny pursed his lips and stared at the waves again, how they clamored to the shore with the fury of a tornado and slammed into the beach so hard he felt the consequent vibrations. He looked down at his daughter somehow managing to look innocently eager and adorable in her ruffled pink one piece, green goggles and top-of-the-line life vest.

"I'll put it this way: who do you want taking your daughter into the ocean? Some swim instructor with maybe two weeks of training, Step-Stan or a Navy SEAL who holds the free-diving record and has completed the world's toughest training in survival at sea, which includes warding off sharks?"

Danny pinned Steve with marbled blue eyes that were dark with protectiveness and love. "If she comes back dented or scratched, your years as a SEAL will be no help to you protect you from me, you got it?"

Steve saluted with a grin, but sobered when he promised, "I'll protect her with my life." He took Grace's hand and they ambled swiftly towards the water. Steve understood the magnitude of the gesture.

Danny watched them go, squinting from the glare of the sun. "If you even think you see a fin, you haul ass, Steven!" He hollered after them.

Steve halted and turned, knowingly lifting Grace out of the water with one arm as a strong wave broke behind them in splashed at his thighs. The water was both cold and warm. "You could come with us, you know!"

Grace looked up at Steve with her froggy-goggled eyes. "Danno don't swim," she lamented with an weary sigh.

Steve laughed, wondering where she'd learned pidgin. "I know, Gracie. Danno don't swim."

-5-0-

For once, there was no cajoling, no never-ending monologues about the importance due process, standard procedure and the complexities of the American justice system. Danny, face etched in a fierceness that Steve only saw when Grace was involved, merely exited the Camaro, popped the trunk, put on his vest and loaded up on ammo.

Steve was impressed, and more than a little proud that his rule-obsessed partner was finally appreciating the overwhelming advantage of "full immunity and means," yet he understood Danny's motivation. The suspects that were currently and frantically trying to flee the island by their luxury yacht had smuggled young women in the country for the sole purpose of imprisoning them, impregnating them and selling the babies to rich, desperate and stupid couples aching to become parents. It was a legal and emotional nightmare with no simple, happy ending since CPS was involved, threatening to take the children away from the only parents they've ever known.

Steve knew that the only rewarding outcome would be putting these monsters behind bars.

Heavily armed, Steve and Danny jogged to the slip where the suspects' yacht, Silver Spoon, should have been floating in all of its overpriced glory. Steve holstered his weapon, turning in circles to scan the crowd looking for the ringleaders, Melinda and George Carlyle.

"Steve…" Danny's nostrils flared, and his face grew an irate shade of crimson, as he stared out into the expanse of azure ocean.

In the distance, Silver Spoon barreled towards open water.

Cursing hotly, Steve grasped for another means of pursuit. He remembered the jetski rental office a few yards back a beat before Danny did. With a flash of a badge and a call into Kono and Chin, Steve and Danny were climbing down the dock's ladder and ontop a commandeered jetski. Steve started the engine and waited for Danny to descend behind him, his tie fluttering in the ocean breezes.

"Why are you always driving again?"

"Because you hate everything involved with water. And because I'm a freakin' SEAL."

"One day you'll realize that the 'freakin' SEAL' excuse is only impressive to single women who are obsessed with 'The Bachelor.'" Danny slipped behind him with a groan. "I'm not putting my arms around you like some hot girl trying to flirt."

"Then you're gonna fall off, princess." Steve muttered as he cranked and then gunned the engine.

"I freakin' hate you, McGarrett," Danny seethed in his ear as his arms snaked slowly around his waist. "Seethe, loathe. I think today is the day when I start crafting the voodoo doll. Assuming I live through this joyride."

They powered off towards the departing Silver Spoon.

For Lieutenant Commander Steve McGarrett, boarding a speeding boat from a careening jetski in choppy waters was as simple as climbing stairs. For Detective Danny Williams, it was like running on Saturn's rings during a meteor shower. Wind whizzed by as sharp as arrows and at this speed, the soft water that patiently lapped at the beach during the day, was as hard and as bone-breaking as concrete. After a lot of prayers, some strained muscles and one abandoned jetski, both men were on board, guns at the ready. Steve motioned with a swipe of his hand under his chin that he was going navigation bridge to kill the navigation bridge. Danny nodded and directed his attention to the staircase that no doubt led to another floor of off-putting luxury. Maybe it was simple-minded, but he didn't think boats should have carpets…or chandeliers.

The soft footfalls of soft-soled shoes and a flash of denim blue were the only signs of a fleeing suspect. He made chase with caution, finger off the trigger. Boats, even one as extravagant as this, were dangerous places for any kind of combat, because there were so many places to hide and anything, from masts to friggin' harpoons, could be used as a weapon. He wasn't as surefooted as Steve the SEAL, but this yacht was as solid as a skyscraper, and almost as big. A leg jutted out and Danny reflexively leapt to avoid it. He twisted gracelessly in mid-air and leveling his gun at the suspect before his feet hit the deck. It was George, Melina's husband, who looked as cowardly and skittish as he had when Danny first questioned him last week. The slim, beanpole of a man with thin-framed speckles and a fair complexion _in Hawaii_ had literally hid behind his wife.

Danny couldn't resist and regarded his deck shoes, "Good to know you can dress right for every occasion. Can't wait to see you in prison orange. Your wife won't be able to protect you then."

Danny rolled his eyes and gestured with his gun. "Hands up. Turn around. Slowly."

George narrowed his mousy brown eyes and acquiesced, mustering up a nasty glared that probably wouldn't have scared Grace. He looked forward to throwing him in lock-up with the feral monsters. Even the most hardened of criminals had their own morals and gruesomely punished inmates who harmed children.

"On your knees," Danny barked, muscles taut as he advanced. He holstered his gun and reached for his zipties.

There was a scuffle in the near the bridge of the massive luxury yacht. George's body tensed, seconds away from action and Danny scruffed him, bodily hauling him to the side of the boat. He kicked and flawed, clawing him with nails sharper than any man should ever have. Danny thought of the mothers and fathers on the verge of losing their children, and the dirty, malnourished women chained up in a basement and used as incubators and nothing more. It would have been easy and cathartic to stomp him into a gory pulp or even toss him overboard for the lives he'd helped ruin.

Instead, Danny secured him to the rails of the boat with two zipties and darted off to back Steve up. The yacht was massive with rows stairs, multiple levels and spit-shined chrome. He wandered around the lower deck, straining to hear over the efficient hum of the engine and the rush of the sea. It didn't take long for Danny to pick up on the muffled thumps of fisticuffs. He sprinted towards the sounds of the fray, and thought of yet another reason why he hated the disgustingly wealthy.

But Danny wasn't truly scared. He'd never admit it—never even under his partner's beloved fear of death—but he naively believed that Steve could survive anything. He'd seen him get shot and crack jokes afterwards. He'd seen him tasered unconscious only to rescue his sister from kidnappers a mere four hours later. He'd seen him bear the ugly burden death of his father with astonishing composure and rationality. So he wasn't surprised when he nearly tripped over the unconscious body of the George's muscle, because Steve could take care of himself in the craziest of situations. He hurdled him at the last minute and landed with an uncomfortable twinge in his bad knee.

As he skidded around the corner, he saw Melinda—who had struck Danny as woman of high society and pretension with her palatial mansion and impeccably manicured claws—emerge from the cabin deck in a bikini and a cover-up, and bash his partner in the face with a heavy red metal tool that she had to grip with both hands just to swing. Steve toppled over like a cut redwood, instantly unconscious judging by the limp wobble of his limbs and how he flew back unheeded over the railing of the boat.

There was a gruesome thud and a splash.

Danny was pretty sure that not even the valiant Steve McGarrett could survive a monkey wrench to the head.

Shock was a lightning striking Danny's heart and a frigid lilt up his spine. He fired before he even thought about it, hitting Melinda in the shoulder. The suspect rocketed back from the force of the bullet punching through her flank, wrench flying from her grip. Her face, that was always pinched in a nasty, recriminating sneer, unfolded in an open expression of shock and pain. Blood pooled on the pristine white of the deck.

In the distance, George was screaming like the animal he was.

And Steve, the decorated Navy SEAL, the man Danny thought was indestructible, was _drowning_.


	2. Chapter 2

Wow, I'm always blown away by the reviews and alerts I get from writing these stories. Thanks so much.

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><p><strong>Chapter 2<strong>

Mind screaming, adrenaline bubbling in his throat, Danny clawed off his ballistic vest. He cleared the low railing and onto the navigation board and dove into the water, propelling himself beneath the surface.

Danny had never lied when he said he only swam for survival. He had been a lifeguard at the neighborhood pool in the summers during high school, and was a bullet in the water when he had to be.

But the ocean was vastly different than the Hoboken City Pool, a living thing with a pulsing waves and watery breath. The salt water stung his eyes more than chlorine ever had and conflicting currents offered an eerie resistance. Fortunately, the Pacific was clear and he spotted his partner sinking beneath its sapphire depths, a grainy trail of blood billowing from his head, arms akimbo and unmoving. Without surfacing for breath, Danny dove, kicking expertly with his legs and wishing he'd taken the time to remove his shoes and socks, and grabbed a lifejacket.

His lungs began to tingle as his grabbed Steve by the handy strap on his vest and powered towards sunlight.

His partner, weighted down by muscle, the metal plates in his vest and the sheer number of weapons packed into the many pockets of his cargo pants, was heavier than an anchor. Danny used every fiber of muscle to make his arduous ascent, straining as the unpleased tickle in his chest became an oxygen-starved burn and his legs began to cramp. He broke through the surface of the water with a dragging gasp, pulling in half water and half air. He sputtered, threatening to be dragged under by Steve's weight. It took a minute for Danny to get a secure hold on his unconscious partner while treading water. The back of Steve's head thumped back against his shoulder, body limbs hanging and bobbing. Steve sputtered too, instinctively bringing up the water he'd aspirated.

"I know this is your lucky vest, but it's gotta go. I'm sure you can free-dive for it later, Aquaman." He fumbled for the Velcro opening and clumsily worked it off.

Steve sank beneath the water as Danny finally worked it free.

"Whoa!" Danny reclaimed him again, right arm tight around Steve's chest. He could feel Steve's heart beating and his chest rising, shallow and fast. It wasn't great, but Steve was still alive. "That's good, buddy, just keep that up."

He nudged Steve's head with his shoulder in an awkward attempt to shift it, so he could see the damage Melinda had done. Steve's head lolled unheeded, nose pressed against Danny's chin. The proximity was a little strange, but Danny's stomach plummeted when he saw it.

Steve's face was already horribly swollen and clearly deformed. Danny wondered if a bone in his face was broken. Blood poured from a long and deep laceration just above his eyebrow, painting half of his face in red blood that dripped pink down his stubbled jaw as it mixed with the water. Danny was seized with acidic nausea and he tried to wipe his friend's face clean, but even small head wounds bled badly and this one was far from it.

Steve needed a hospital _now_.

He gazed around him, trying to gain his bearings. In the distance, he saw the retreating stern of the yacht puttering off towards in the distance, moving far too fast for Danny to catch and re-board. The jetski, discarded in the name of justice, was nowhere to be found. Danny could only see glittering ocean, no land, no boat, nothing but undulating water and the afternoon sun. It took concerted effort to smother the looming and well-deserved anxiety attack building from being alone in the ocean with an injured and unconscious partner.

He surmised, from the direction the yacht was heading, that land was directly behind him. How far, he didn't know, but he had to move.

Fear and determination spurned him on, and he swam not for recreation or exercise, but for his friend's life.

-5-0-

Steve couldn't trust his senses. He saw nothing but mottled gray-blue, the melding of ocean and sky. He tasted salty pennies on his tongue. His body was buoyant and floaty, but his limbs were too heavy to lift and inexplicably numb. He smelled the sea but couldn't find it. He heard labored breaths in his ear and the fluid crackle of water.

It was all too much and somehow not enough. And Steve drifted away again.

-5-0-

Danny was trying not to count the plethora of ways they were royally and completely screwed, and failing miserably. The water wasn't warm. And with the sun sinking in the sky in a blaze of marbled indigos and pinks, it was only getting colder.

Steve had been drifting in and out of consciousness. He'd open his eyes for a minute and blink sluggishly out at the horizon, but he wouldn't or couldn't respond to Danny's increasingly frantic pleas, and then he'd pass out again. He was ashen, a glowing, stark contrast to the darkening blue around them. Danny knew the longer they were in the water, the worse Steve's condition would get.

After swimming for what felt like hours, land still wasn't in sight. Danny was terrified that he was swimming further from land instead of towards it. If that was the case, he'd just sealed both of their fates. If sharks didn't catch the scent of Steve's blood in the water, hypothermia would eventually claim them both.

"It'd be funny to die of hypothermia in freakin' Hawaii, right, Steve?" Danny muttered, a little deliriously.

His body _hurt_. Swimming a great distance without training was hard enough, but he was towing a six-foot-one freak of nature, which meant he was swimming one-handed and with hampered kicks, and his strength was fading faster than the light.

Nine years ago, Danny, a rookie cop hungry with a hero complex, had foolishly bolted into a burning house to save a teenager only to find out that the girl had exited the through the back. He'd been trapped there, in the pure heat that felt like the surface of the sun and the noxious smoke. After he'd been rescued by firefighters and thoroughly reamed by both the fire chief and his C.O., Danny lived in pools and drank copious amounts of water, because he couldn't shake the sensation that the fire was inside of him, searing his insides and branding him a way that had nothing to do with inhaled smoke or the minor burns he'd gotten.

Now, Danny was pretty sure he'd love some fire right now—a little bonfire to restore the feeling in his fingers and toes, maybe like the magical ones Hermione made in _Harry Potter_. He could really use fire in a jar-

_Whoa. _

His thoughts were turning dark, and meandering in dangerous ways, so he forced himself back to the horrific present. He checked Steve's pulse and kept swimming even though his stroke was sloppy and a he could probably be outstripped by a turtle.

Steve groaned again, the back of his head knocked against Danny's shoulder.

Danny couldn't see his face, but felt his muscles contracting in pain, cold and confusion. "Come on, buddy, snap out of it. It's your turn to swim here. Time to make like a fish."

Danny kept his burning legs kicking, and right arm pumping in the water and loosening his grip just enough to gently flick some water on Steve's unswollen cheek, hoping to rouse him a little. He then rubbed his knuckles over Steve's sternum, grinning when his partner twisted a little, and batted at his hand.

"..ssstop it."

"He speaks." He sighed, relieved. "Babe, we're really in the weeds. Put those webbed feet to use and kick for me, SEAL."

Steve sputtered, regarding the water as if he'd never seen it before. Danny cursed. "If you're trying to convince me that you're okay, lying here like a zombie isn't the way to do it."

Danny felt his partner's entire body flinch, and a wave ripple through it, and then Steve was gagging.

"Hey! Steve, what's going on?"

It wasn't until something hot sluiced down Danny's arm did he realize that Steve was vomiting. With a fast ferocity, he stopped swimming and turned his partner, fisting the front of his drenched shirt. Steve's head flopped forward, and his shoulders rocked around of the water as he retched everything he'd eaten in his life into the water. Nausea and vomiting were common with concussions, and Danny didn't need to an M.D. behind his name to know that's what they were dealing with at the very minimum.

Swallowing his own bile, he supported Steve as he hurled impressively and tried to avoid the splash back. "You're defiling your beloved mistress of the sea, and not to mention my shirt. You're lucky I have a kid and been barfed on about 1,104 times."

Steve finished in a flourish of saliva and very un-McGarrett-like whimpers of misery. Danny swam away from the mess, and made use of the water, wiping his partner's face clean. "Hey, none of that," he chastised when Steve's tongue darted out, lapping at the water dripping off his chin.

Danny pulled Steve to him again, and attempted to catch his eyes in the twilight. They were wild, pupils unmatched. "Steve," he said carefully, "can you talk to me, tell me how you're feeling?"

He looked dazed, and oddly blissed out. His face was lax and his lips were almost grayish. He regarded Danny with a vacant, aimless stare, the blood was caked and congealed around his bloated eye. "Ddanny…c-ccan't swimmm."

The trepidation was as sharp as ever, cutting clear through him, and yet, he was reassured that Steve had recognized him, and called him by name. Danny spoke in a soft, reassuring tone, knowing that he had to scared and disoriented. "You don't have to swim," he reeled him back in. "I got your back."

It was utterly unimaginable that Danny had to handle Steve with his victim gloves. He had naively thought that his partner was invulnerable, a man of steel. To witness him like this was almost harder than being friggin' stranded at sea. His heart ached more acutely than his weary body and screaming muscles when Steve's eyes rolled up again as he passed out again. Danny resettled him against his chest, holding him as tight as he could. He pressed his lips against Steve's ear and uttered an ironclad promise.

"Don't worry, Steve, I can carry us both."

Empowered by not only the will to survive, but also the knowledge that his partner's life depended on him, Danny kept swimming.


	3. Chapter 3

Wow, again, the response has been amazing. I'm truly speechless. I have to apologize for this update taking so long. My mother's birthday was this past weekend and I planned a big barbecue for her. It was a lot more work than I imagined it would be with people coming in from out of town and tons of food to buy and cook and decorations to make and hang. I was questioning a certain part of this chapter, and I had to sit with it for a while before I posted it. I'm happy with it, so here we go again.

I hope you enjoy it! Thanks so much for your patience.

I hear the show starts filming today. Only two more months until the season two premiere!

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><p><strong>Chapter 3<br>**

The human body was a complex creation of muscles and ligaments, heart, brain and lungs. Danny didn't like thinking of himself as a collection of molecules, a structure of bone, an organism of synapses and electric pulses, but he had to because while his spirit championed him on, pushing him to the next stroke and beyond, his body was breaking down—a contraption that had been pushed past its limits, an engine with an overheated radiator.

And the waves were only getting stronger, sometimes cresting over their heads. It was taking more and more energy just to keep their heads above water.

Steve was conscious and quiet, although Danny could feel him trembling. The darkness unfurled around them like an onyx shroud, blocking Steve's face. Danny could only reassure him with his voice and his touch.

His thoughts seemed muddy and distant and sometimes he forgot where he was, or why he was swimming. A few times, he felt himself drifting, his eyes rolling around in his head like loose changes in the dryer. When it happened again, Danny knew something had to be done. That he had to regard himself like a machine.

"Fuel," he slurred through his chattering teeth.

He patted down Steve's many pockets, hoping he had some energy bars or maybe some powdered eggs stuffed into one of the pockets of his cargo pants-anything to get him more energy. Danny found nothing but a few magazines of bullets, Steve's back up gun, and butterfly knife.

The moon emerged from the tufts of dark clouds, and ivory light glinted off the metal. Pain caused a chain reaction within the body, endorphins were released and that could possibly buy Danny more time. He revealed the blade with a complicated flick of his wrist. He panned his surroundings again, but saw nothing but moonlight drenched waters and the dull glitter of clouds above. He juggled Steve again, giving him an awkward hug to free his other arm as he pressed the blade to the sallow, pruny skin of the inside of his arm. He'd hesitated for a second, needed to push beyond the innate voice in his screaming at him not to. With a halting laugh that sounded a little maniacal to his own ears, Danny dragged the blade across his skin, and felt the it slice deep and neat into the water-logged flesh of his arm. He couldn't see the blood, but felt the sluggish warmth dissipate down his arm. He credited the hypothermia for the delayed pain, but once it hit, it was pulsing and loud and white-hot. Danny hissed as the salt from the ocean stung excruciatingly.

It took longer than he imagined, but soon he felt the bluish, heady rush of power. The pain in his arm was dulled a bit and he could swim a little longer.

Danny was overwhelmingly reassured when realized Steve was kicking a bit too.

-5-0-

If it wasn't for the moonlight, Danny never would have seen the ominously circling fins.

The maddening terror he'd been caging for Lord knew how long erupted in an instant as he spotted four dorsals encroaching dangerously close to him and his partner. Horror and paralyzing fear turned to resolute and indignant rage. With an empowered fury, Danny grabbed Steve's gun and took aim just below the rubbery-gray. He felt something slide beneath his feet, teasing and curious.

"I know I chummed the waters, but trust me, Jaws, I don't taste as good as I look."

Danny fumbled to pull back the slide on what he was pretty sure a useless gun as the fins swam in a tighter circle.

His heart pounded in his ears and his head swam with the unaccepctable threat of certain death. He'd promised Steve he'd get him help. He told Grace that the water was safe. He told Rachel he'd see her on Friday.

Something broke the surface of the water.

But it wasn't a shark. Danny didn't see rows of razor sharp teeth or the face of a mindless killing machine. He saw_…a dolphin_.

"…what the…"

Danny didn't lower his gun. The dolphin, with its silvery rounded head and whimsical little face, bobbed in the water and regarded him with a playful curiosity. Danny stared back unsure of what to do. He'd read that dolphins were actually hypersexual and sometimes violent in the wild, but Grace had regaled him of stories about their benevolence. At the time, when Danny was packing her up to go to Hawaii, he just assumed she'd been watching too episodes of "Flipper."

The dolphin keened at him, in that sharp, sound that resembled the shrill squeak of balloons. He heard others respond in the darkness. They were surrounded.

"…d-ddo you see them too?" Steve slurred. His teeth were chattering too.

"Yeah." Danny said, reassured by his partner's voice. "This is good, right?"

"…seems that way."

He lowered the gun and patted Steve's chest. He hadn't been this lucid or vocal in some time. "How you doing?"

Steve blew out a congested breath. "...head's killin' me."

Relief that Steve was more coherent than he had been in house was a wave of elation, a fleeting flicker of joy before the crushing terror and helplessness settling in again. "A wrench to the _cabeza_ will do that."

"Nn-never saw it…why're we in…water?"

"Um…you decided to see if you could swim while you were unconscious. Even you can't do that."

Danny felt Steve's back muscles quivering against him, and he struggled against the arm over his chest. "…use less ww-words."

"You got hit in the head and fell overboard." He simplified.

"Oh."

Danny's eyes never left the pod of dolphins and he watched them in the moonlight-dappled waters as they jumped and arced in the air. It was ethereal and strangely beautiful.

Before he could say anything else, the pod of dolphins began clicking and neighing, verbose and exuberant. The leaping intensified. Danny couldn't see much, but heard a decrease in the time in-between splashes, and felt the water hitting his face. The two dolphins he could see swam closer, screeching excitedly and then sank beneath the water.

Lassitude abruptly cocooned him, more seductive and alluring than a siren, and soon water invaded his mouth and nose, flooding his lungs. Danny opened his eyes to liquid, salty black. His lungs began to scream in the deep purple pain, joining in the rest of his body. He didn't think about how he might be drifting off to a place where he couldn't come back, but that he'd failed to do what he'd promised. The monsters were going to get away and Steve was too hurt to swim.

Something knocked him in the ribs, hard. Danny opened his mouth in a scream only to find that he was drowning. He was checked again, and his body was bumped in a direction that felt like up. He tried to swim or climb towards the low, ivory light only to find that he was was absolutely depleted.

He was bumped again and then felt a smooth cool flank and the arc of a fin. A dolphin was trying to push him to the surface, and it was entirely too surreal for it to be reality. He glided in the water in a series of painful collisions. And then something snagged him by the collar and he was being towed.

He choked on the fresh air more than he had on the water. It was an impossible need to breath oxygen and expel water at the same time. Somehow, with a lot of twitching, horking and a little retching, he managed found some rocky, watery equilibrium. Steve's grip on him was iron-tight, and the pair bobbed hypnotically with the waves.

For several long moments, neither man knew who was supporting whom.

Steve had latched onto with a bruising grip, and the dolphins striped beneath them, flanks streaking by their feet.

"…hang on, partner…" He heard Steve mutter in a weak, choppy tone.

The strength was there, the wrought-iron will that had been forged by Uncle Sam and some hearty genes. His partner was swimming with difficulty, but faring better than Danny, despite the head injury, hypothermia, the hours in the sea.

It was Danny who was struggling, faltering. The thought of responding of spending another minute in the freakin' sea almost overwhelmed him.

And then, miraculously, Danny heard the distant chopping rhythm of helicopter blades. Danny thought he was imagining it, conjuring up sounds from his heart's desire, but Steve looked towards the heavens and confirmed that he heard it too.

Danny felt the heat of the rescue team's light before he saw it. The hours in the water had rendered him immune to the sensation of being wet, although cold was a prickly constant. But now he felt it, the saturated fullness of his skin, the water rattling in his ears and throat, current sluicing through his thoroughly sodden clothes.

The force of the descending helicopter kickstarted a tornado of water and wind and light, and somehow it all melded into a strobe of disjointed action—frantic voices and a wobbly ascent in a litter made of flimsy metal mesh; fluorescent lights and a tiles of a dropped ceiling meant civilization…but somehow, Danny was still floating…until at last, he sank into the black depths.


	4. Chapter 4

Hi! I'm back. So sorry I've been gone for so long. I neglected to mention that I was my niece was visiting all last week and I had be to Cool Auntie. Cool Auntie doesn't sit at the computer for hours and write, she hosts iCarly marathons and lets her niece eat ice cream at midnight and helps her build the Hogwarts Harry Potter castle and takes her to the park.

I will also say that Steve's voice doesn't come as easily to me as Danny's does. So I took my time, making it as best and as exciting as I could. This story definitely took a turn, but it was one I really didn't plan for but I really like. Promise you won't have to wait that long for the next (and probably final) part!

Thanks again for all of the alerts and the feedback. It has been AMAZING. Also, my mom thanks y'all for the birthday wishes! :)

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><p><strong>Chapter 4<br>**

Sometime later, it would strike Steve as disturbingly ironic that he seemed to rally after he was plucked from the water. He'd never know if it was the percussive thump of the helicopter blades or the crackle of radio chatter that roused him from the concussive haze, but Steve's awareness blossomed as he was expertly lifted from the litter and onto a backboard and covered with warming blankets.

Pain was beginning to brighten within him, like the newborn rays of the sun lighting the night sky. He felt like a newborn, swaddled and overstimulated, fascinated and irritated by every minute detail —from the C-collar tight around his neck to the shivering coldness of his wet clothes to puffed tightness of the side of his face.

The litter came up again, and with watery, blurred vision, he saw Danny being lifted from it. Steve had seen corpses pulled from the water, bloated and blue, and Danny didn't look much different with pallor a waxy gray, lips a dusky blue, and his normally kinetic hands rendered woodenly limp. And then he whisked from his limited line of sight.

Steve tried to turn his head, but it was locked tight in place, industrial plastic digging into his chin.

The flash of panic glinted through him brighter than the light being shined in his eyes, the electric pain in his head and face and louder than the rumble of the helicopter as he fumbled with wooden fingers clawing for straps or buckles. It hurt, God, it hurt, but he had to know if Danny was okay. He couldn't seem to communicate properly, words falling out of his mouth like nonsensical sludge, his tongue was dry and useless. But there, glowing like the stubborn embers of a fire was the urge to fight and scrapple for the next second and the next breath, even if it brought grief and confusion and pain. Because Steve had never not fought.

Hands were agony on pressure-sensitive skin. Nylon straps were digging into his chest. And he was breathing through a tube. The strobing darkness of the chopper suddenly bled a brilliant crimson and then…white…

-5-0-

Voices brought him back to a shallow, watery awareness.

They were hushed and quiet, a vast contrast to the quick, unpleasant thump of his heart and the vestiges of adrenaline lilting through him. Steve couldn't seem to open his eyes, and he lingered in a strange, unsettling plane where light bled through his lashes and his arms wouldn't move and his face felt bloated and stiff and throbbingly numb.

He was weak, and had vague memories of helicopters, dolphins, and a soothing whisper in his ear, but it was all unfamiliar and foreign, like someone else's memories had been implanted with him.

Steve felt his body drifting, back under the current of unconsciousness, and he hesitated to let it, and focused on the voices.

"…you shouldn't be here. Steve is going to haul you right back to the airport as soon as he wakes up. He's going to freak out."

"He's the only family I have left and I have to be here. He wants me here, even if he doesn't say it."

Steve knew that voice, like he knew Hawaii's shore and hills. It was huskier than their mother's, but just as consoling. It was Mary, his sister. From what seemed like a great distance, he heard the snap of heels on tiled floors, the creak of a chair, and the rattle of bracelets, and then he felt fingers, lithe and thin, enveloping his hand. Picking it up and pressing it against glossed lips. It was so soothing, he almost went back to sleep, but a warm hand ghosting over his head, scratching through his hair.

"And don't forget, you called me wiggin' out. Thirteen hours, you said, he'd been gone for _thirteen hours_. Anything could have happened. I had to be here."

Steve could hear the conviction in her voice, and the disbelief and it somehow kept him there, treading water in a black realm of semi-consciousness. He felt closer to the surface.

Mary sniffled wetly and gently released his hand. The rhythm of her heels on the tile was disjointed, erratic. "He's all I have left." She whispered. It was muddled and feather-light, but heavy with pain—the catalyst Steve needed to open his eyes.

Everything was blunted in a watercolor haze, diluted and light, but somewhere beneath the thinned-out haze of mint green and sterile white, was a cutting, cold, concentrated feeling life-and-death grade urgency. He couldn't pinpoint what or why, but the feeling was as real as the blood in his veins and the heart in his chest.

Something horrible had happened. And he couldn't remember.

He blinked around the room, still unable to turn his head or make out more than garbled shapes of a hospital room, and Chin Ho Kelly embracing his Mary in front of a window. The harsh glare of white that bled in seemed to sear his retinas and rile up his queasy stomach. He slammed his eyes shut and gripped the sheets as he tried not to throw up.

"Steve?" Mary's husky voice was almost shrill from concern.

His face felt dented. The pain and pressure hit him like a thunderbolt, and he may have groaned and writhed a bit on the uncomfortable, noisy mattress.

"Relax, Steve. Try not to move."

"…can't move…" He tasted old blood and a stomach-turning nastiness in his mouth while his teeth scraped stingly into his cheek. His whole face felt puffed up like a balloon.

"That's because you have a neck brace on. You're fine now, just chill."

Mary, the girl who rolled her eyes and heaved monumental sighs when he hugged her, took her brother's hand again. Steve once again concentrated on her fingers and the cold thrill of her bracelets caressing his arm. She held his eyes and squeezed his hand at random intervals and rubbed the length of his arm. His skin felt too-tight, too-hot and dry, like charred paper. "I know things seem confusing, but you're all right, Stevie. I got this."

The world around him was darkening, and solidifying, and Steve could feel little hurts and injuries weaving into a tapestry of soreness, and he could absorb details a little better. Like the fact that there was something wrong with his sight. It was blurry and granular and diminished and it took him far too long to discern that only one eye was open. His heart palpitated at the notion that his sight had been damaged, and maybe his face had been disfigured. Steve wasn't vain, and yet he'd taken extreme pride in walking away with warzones a scant amount of physical scares. It spoke to his skill as a Lieutenant Commander and to the strength of the SEALs.

"My eye? Mary…what happened?"

"It's just swollen. A lot." Mary's face, blown open with poorly masked worry, wobbled and spun a little, so Steve closed his eyes, and squeezed her hand.

It was then that he realized as he studied the exhausted forms and rumpled clothes of Chin, Kono and Mary, that someone was missing.

_Danny._

He cleared his throat. "Where's…Danny?"

Kono became fascinated with the S and T waves of the heart monitor.

Mary busied herself with adjusting his blankets and tucking the nasal cannula behind his ear.

At the foot of the bed, Chin's shoulders dropped in surrender. "What's the last thing you remember, Steve? About anything?"

The ache in his head doubled when he tried to recall anything more than half-memories and flashes of emotion, but he bit his lip and bared it. "Um…D-Danny was late to work, rantin' about the traffic and the yuppies at Grace's school."

Chin nodded curtly. Steve knew he was polite when he was frazzled. "That was two days ago, Steve. You got hurt in trying to bring in two suspects from the 'baby factory' case. Melinda and George Hyatt. George was rescued from the yacht and taken into custody. Melinda bled out from her a gunshot wound."

Chin talked to him like he normally did with traumatized teenagers, and it was making him furious. "Spit it out."

He nodded and slipped gently behind his cousin. Kono seemed grateful to step aside to the foot of the bed. "You got hit in the head with wrench. You have a really nasty concussion and a cracked cheekbone. Your eye is all right, it's just swollen shut like Mary said. Y-you were in the water…"

Fury exploded within him so hot and so fast, Steve couldn't keep it in check. "I'm not a _fucking_ kid, Chin, just tell me where the _fuck_ Danny is?"

Mary flinched at the roughness of Steve's voice, but he didn't care. His head ached, his body was sore and his partner was missing.

"Steve, calm down. You can't get excited." Kono warned, eyes flickering between him on the monitor.

Steve clenched his jaw so hard his vision flashed white. If he had the strength, he would have gotten out of the bed to seek out the answers he needed that were apparently too difficult to convey efficiently.

His father's partner and his friend regarded him with hard-won patience. "Like I said, Melinda hit you in face with a wrench, and you fell overboard. Danny jumped in to get you, but the boat was going too fast for him to re-board."

The thoughts that were swirling in Steve's mind with hateful, frenetic vigor halted to stricken silence as he tried to grasp what that meant for him and for Danny. His partner had never voluntarily swam. Steve hadn't even seen him in the water. And he wondered, for protracted, terrible moment if he'd drown trying to save Steve. Before the thought was even fully formed, Steve felt his eyes well and tears streaking down his face.

Chin had given him time to process it, and moved to sit on the edge of his bed. "He's not dead, right? I mean…he's okay?"

"He's not dead, Steve. But he swam, towing you, for almost fourteen hours. It took the Coast Guard so long to find you because he was so close to shore, and we thought you were on the boat. He's in bad shape, Steve."

He was still crying, and he noticed Mary was too. "How bad?"

"His shoulder was dislocated and some ribs are bruised. He was hypothermic just like you were. But the real problem is that there's a cut on his arm that got infected. His body is so weak from swimming that he's having a hard time fighting the infection."

"Is he going to die?"

Chin smiled, and there wasn't a touch of irony or denial. "He's Danny, _brah_. He's just being dramatic."

"I want to see him."

Mary leaned over his slightly elevated bed and carefully wiped his eyes and pressed a tissue in his hand. "You need to rest, Steve."

"No," he snarled, shaking the rails of the bed like they were bars of a prison cell. "I want to see my damn partner."

"I'm getting his neurologist. He's all over the place. This isn't Steve." Kono said before she streaked from the room.

After a neurological check, answering a lot of questions and an X-Ray and MRI that Steve dozed through, the neck brace was removed and Steve was back in his blissfully darkened room, and Steve was crying again, bereft at the thought of Danny suffering because of him and at how bleak everything seemed. The doctor assured him that it was just the concussion, but Steve didn't care. And now his head hurt so badly, it made him shake.

Mary sat next to him, demonstrating more patience in the last few hours than she had in the past twenty years. She had grown in the months since she left Hawaii. She no longer seemed like this angry little girl rebelling against the death of her mother through bad decisions and too-much eyeliner, but like a composed young woman willing to sit with his brother while he sobbed for no reason.

"You're just a little erratic because of the concussion. They're going to give you something so you can rest. I bet you'll feel better when you wake up."

"I don't w-want it. Need to see Danny."

"Well, dude, you're not in best place to be making decisions. And Kono has been staying with him. He's not alone, Steve."

The nurse entered the room with a smile and syringe. She checked his vitals and offered her trembling patient another blanket. And then she pulled on her gloves and administered the narcotics. "Tell Danno that I'm coming…be there when I get up," he said as his arm began to tingle and a brilliant warmth settled within him, but the fear was still there. Because the last time Steve's world had spiraled into tragedy, and his father had died, Danny had swooped in to pick up the pieces, and this time that might not be true.


	5. Chapter 5

I'm back with another chapter, and thankfully it's not the last one! The next part should be up in a week or so. I'm going out of town this weekend, so I won't be able to write much.

Again, thanks so much for all of the reviews. I'm still trying to reply to them all, but I'm always blown away by them! I hope you enjoy this next chapter.

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><p><strong>Chapter 5<strong>

Most people spent their lives avoiding pain. They wore knee pads and pot holders, popped painkillers at the slightest twinge of discomfort, and easily surrendered to their fears and phobias. Because of this, they never knew the exhilaration or the thrill of being truly alive. Of harnessing the power of a wave for a few glorious seconds or that sickening, awesome rush of defying everything primal, engrained instinct and jumping out of a plane. By avoiding pain, people wiped so much more out of their lives. Steve, as a child with both parents and a whole family, had always been a daredevil. He'd scrapped his knees and elbows, blackened his eyes and broken bones—he'd welcomed the pain and always went back for more. As a teenager with a dead mother and an absentee father, Steve had coveted physical pain as it distracted from the torture of grief.

And now was no different. He needed to see Danny to offer his gratitude and support to show him he was okay, and he didn't care how much it hurt, burned or throbbed.

After being sedated, he'd slept for a twenty hours, and woke up a little more clear-headed and consumed with guilt. It was dark in the room, curtains drawn against muted light of a rainy afternoon. Steve braced himself for the flare of pain as he turned his head, and noticed that for the first time, his room was empty. The chair where Mary usually sat, hovering and biting her nails, was unoccupied, save for the blanket she usually slept with. He frowned, ignoring the pinch of the stitches above his puffy eye, and closed his hand around the railing of his bed. It took his drug-addled brain long minutes to figure out how to lower it and even longer for Steve to struggle into a sitting position. His head pounded, thumping pain and intense pressure into his eye and face and from the top of his head to the tips of his toes. It was grating and nauseating, but Steve didn't care. Steve had endured far more for much less.

The tile was icy against the too-hot soles of his feet, and he sighed at their coldness. For a moment he was distracted from his task by overwhelming thirst and the feel of the hospital sheets sandpapery against his palm. It was then, with blurry fascination, that he noticed his skin, flushed and reddish-brown peppered with peeling patches from hours at water where the sun off its mirrored surface.

And then like someone had flipped on a radio, Steve heard of Danny's voice, diluted by the rush of water, promising that he could get them to safety. Motivation renewed, Steve slowly pushed himself upright and while using the bed as a crutch, ambled around it, towards the wooden rectangle of the doorway on legs that felt as sturdy as chopsticks and with vision that was kept shorting out and smearing objects into nonsensical colors, unable to process the bright lights that glared into the darkened room.

He'd made it a few agonizing, triumphant steps when the felt a shredding pull at his left arm and chest and behind his eyes. Grumbling, he looked down and saw that he was tangled in a net of wires of tubing, but by now the tiled floor was lurching, and his head ached so badly, he wanted to cry, so he had to sit. Stubborn, he propped his hip against the other side of the bed, the one closer to the door, and squinted with one functioning eye at the IVs. The needle slid free from the shunt with an enthusiastic bubbling of blood. He tossed the needle aside and sloppily tugged down the length of his gown at the neck, tearing off the leads from the heart monitors. Immediately, the machine droned a loud flatline that ping-ponged in Steve's battered head like a bullet. He covered his ears, literally flattened by the noise.

It clicked off faster than he expected.

Panting against the thin mattress, he waited for a nurse's stern lecture or Mary's profanity-laced concern. Instead he felt the nimble hands of a woman removing the remainder of the leads from his chest. She pulled his gown up, and tied it at the nape his neck and disentangled from the nasal cannula he'd forgotten to remove.

"Commander McGarrett," she said calmly. "You haven't changed much, I see."

Steve remembered that voice, rich and golden like honey. He managed to open his good eye and glanced at the small, yet imposing figure of Dr. Savannah Jensen, a doctor he'd met before when Danny had been severely injured by an ex-con intent on killing his ex-wife and her children. "Change is overrated."

"Your partner is on the fifth floor."

"Good…thanks."

She crossed her arms over her scrubs, they were blue this time, but her hair was still whisked in the same pin-straight ponytail and she still had a soft kind face with dark eyes, brown skin and full lips. "And do you know what floor you're on right now?"

"Uh…" he groaned, thinking made him feel like the wrench had been shoved through his face, "not the fifth."

Savannah smiled. "Cute."

Steve swallowed convulsively, feeling a bit like puking, but beared it anyway. Savannah left the room without another word and he sat there, unsure of what to do or if his shaking legs could even carry him to the doorway. He felt a curious breeze on his backside and realized, with little shame, that he'd been roaming around his room bare-assed. He was almost grateful he hadn't made it to the hallway.

Savannah returned with a pair of scrub-pants tossed over her shoulder and pushing a wheelchair. "Your friends and sister went home to shower and get some sleep, but they'll be back soon. You're going to go see your partner for ten minutes, and then you're coming back here to rest."

She reattached his IV, helped him into the pants and slippers and clapped her hands together as she approached how to help him into the wheelchair. Steve blew out a breath through his cracked, desiccated lips. "My legs aren't workin' quite right."

"You're still weak, and I'm stronger than I look," she assured him.

Steve had never considered himself sexist, but he'd never been as on edge around women—suspects, convicted criminals or otherwise—because when you were trained to take down men twice your size, you sometimes forgot to about the ones smaller than you. But he'd been brained by a woman no bigger than five-four with a slight build and no combat training.

So he didn't chivalrously protest when Dr. Jensen told him to push up with his trembling, sore legs, and she encircled his arms around his waist and they duck-walked to the wheelchair. She was surprisingly strong for her size, supporting his weight and guiding him down into to the chair so he landed softly. The minor jostling still racheted up the pain in behind his eye, but Steve swallowed the wince. "Thanks." He said breathlessly.

She placed a hand, dry from repeated washings, on his shoulder, thumb rubbing with a little more affection than a doctor offering perfunctory comfort. He remembered that she worked in the emergency room.

"You came to see me?" He asked as she pushed him down the long corridors and to the elevators.

"I was on-duty when you and Danny were brought in. I knew I'd see you back in my ER, but I didn't think it'd be so soon," Savannah said with a soft smile in her voice. "But I've been keeping an eye on you both since you were admitted."

Steve didn't want to admit that he didn't even know how long he'd been in the hospital or since they were rescued. Blatant, resolute emotion had dominated nearly all of his brain power and it was taking everything he had to keep some semblance of composure.

The elevator ride up was quiet, although Steve finally got a glimpse of his pulped face, the riot of blackish purples and brilliant blues that claimed one side, and his unshaven jaw and sunburned forehead and cheeks in the polished metal of the elevator doors. There was a bandage low over his eye, covering the stitches, and the bruising had bled into delicate skin of his right eye. He looked as haggard and exhausted as he felt.

Danny's room was right off the nurses' station. As Savannah ventured inside, Steve found himself completely unprepared. He'd imagined Danny would be pale and limp—he was sure he remembered Danny that way before, pliant and blue and still. What he found, though, was that his friend, his partner, was a blistering, alarming shade of crimson—a sunburn far nastier than Steve's. One arm was tightly bandaged from wrist to elbow while the other was strapped to his chest in a complicated immobilizer. And he was far from still, shivering and shaking, muttered and whispering, even though he seemed asleep. Steve's eyes watered at the sight of his partner, battered and ill. It was upsetting to imagine Danny swimming so hard, towing Steve, that he'd pulled his arm from the socket.

As he got closer, he noticed that Danny was breathing funny—shallow and crackly and far too fast. He moaned, a piteously little sound like that of a kitten or a weak baby.

Steve's hand hovered over Danny's quivering one. He looked at Savannah with pleading eyes. "Please tell me he doesn't have…"

"…pneumonia, yes." She confirmed gently, but firmly. She picked up his chart at the end of the bed, studying it intently.

Steve clutched Danny's hand and let out a string of curses in a few languages. He'd rescued Steve from the drink only to have to overcome an entirely different, yet equally horrible, type of drowning.

"It's always a risk, especially factoring in how long you were in the water, the hypothermia. He presented well at first. His lungs seemed good, but he tanked pretty quickly. He didn't respond well to the drugs we gave him. His ex-wife mentioned a previous history of other infections and his doctor consulted with his doctors in Jersey and agreed on stronger antibiotics, and he's responding pretty well. His oxygen levels have stabilized and even climbed a little. He's healthy and still pretty young, so his doctors are optimistic."

It sounded so clinical and impersonal, but Savannah wasn't one to pad or sugarcoat the truth. He trusted her, and needed to believe that Danny would be fine. "He saved my life," he muttered thickly. "He _swam_ to save my life. And he hates the water."

Danny shifted restlessly on the mattress, head lolling on the pillow, his hand closely tightly in Steve's loose grasp. He sat forward, studying Danny's baked face as his crusty eyes opened his narrowed slits. Steve had never been so pleased to see the fever-bright sapphire of Danny's eyes. "Danny, hey, man."

He stared him blankly before gritting out in uneven bursts, "You look…like absolute shit."

Caught off-guard, Steve found himself smiling. "You're not gonna win any beauty pageants either, Jersey."

"Did that bitch…break your face?"

"Yeah, she did. I hear you avenged me though. My own little bodyguard."

"Every Navy SEAL needs one," he said, gasping a little at the end.

Steve could hear the sickness popping in his lungs like muffled firecrackers. "As much as I've missed our little banter, you need to be quiet, all right? Save your breath, man. We have a lot to talk about when you're better, like how the hell you swam that long."

"…lifeguard in Hoboken. Pools…smaller than ocean."

"Danno, shut up and sleep." Steve barked not without affection.

Grace had been there, Steve noticed. Danny had colorful ropes of beads wrapped around his wrists and three of his fingernails were glittery pink. And that was the tipping point, the small desolate detail that broke Steve's heart and his tenuous hold on his composure. He leaned back in the wheelchair and sniffled sadly, imaging Grace climbing the bed and cuddling with her delirious father.

Steve had woken up to a world where people—fathers of adorable, happy little girls—were nearly dying for him, where he was a slave to his emotions, a live wire unsheathed and vulnerable, and where his beloved ocean had betrayed him.

Danny jerked, his face twisting, chest spasming with tearing, wet coughs, and he moved to sit up, eyes darting all over the room. "Damn dolphins," he mumbled agitatedly before falling back on the pillows. Eyes fluttering, Danny regarded him with an unreadable expression and then his brow furrowed mightily and he squinted at Steve. "Dude, are you friggin' crying?"

Despite it all, Steve dissolved into hysterical laughter. And just like that, everything made sense again.


	6. Chapter 6

**Phew!** I'm finally back online. I know when I replied to all of the wonderful feedback, I told people the chapter would be up in a week or so, and it has been a lot longer. You wanna know why? Our internet connection imploded and then our landline went dead and the damn phone company spent their sweet time getting around to the root of the problem. You never realize how much the 'net dominates your life until your network breaks. It was PAINFUL.

Anyway, I'm back online and back with a new chapter. For now, this is the end, although I wouldn't be surprised if an epilogue popped up at some point. Let me know what you think. And thanks again for all of your support and your patience. **  
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><p><strong>Chapter 6<strong>

Steve couldn't remember the last time anyone had taken care of him. He had girlfriends over the years—a single mother who waitressed at a bar near Annapolis; a break-dancer during his time in Japan; and Catherine at various ports of call after SEALS training. The women were all vastly different, except that the relationships were temporary in nature. Steve had never stayed anywhere longer than a year or two, but never long enough for them to disarm his defenses and let them in to ice his bad shoulder or rub his sore back.

It was weird and kind of wonderful to watch Mary in the kitchen, framed by the thick amber light tumbling in from the kitchen. Mary fumbled through the plastic bags, a smile tugging at her lips. Steve shifted in the chair where Mary had left him. "What are you doing?"

"I bought you something."

He rolled his eyes, or at least tried too. The last time Mary had bought him was a chain wallet. He'd loathed it, but wore it anyway, because it would make a nice garrote in a pinch. She plucked something from the depths of the double-bagged grocery sacks and bounded over to him barely buttoning in her laughter. Steve squinted at the object she placed in his hand, irritated that his vision was still blurrily limited.

It was a pair of Batman sunglasses. With the classic Batman insignia on the sides, frosted lenses in telltale Ray Band frames. He smiled, lopsidedly and looked to his sister for an explanation.

"I thought they'd help, ya know, since the light bothers your eyes."

Usually such a gesture probably wouldn't have flooded his body with warmth (or his eyes with tears), but these days were anything but normal, and he slid the glasses on, feeling like a beloved big brother and a little boy. Mary sat down on the coffee table, admiring them and Steve placed his hand on the crown of her head, like he'd done when Mary was little girl and he wanted to keep her close, reassure himself that she was there.

"Mary…"

"I know, Steve. I know you don't want me here, but…"

Steve shook his head, hating the uncertainty in her eyes. "Actually, I was going to say that…that I'm glad you're here. Thank you…for coming."

Mary's small face lit up like a sunrise, and she nodded curtly. "So you want some soup? I found a do-able recipe."

"You learned to cook?" Steve asked as Mary pushed him back onto the sofa and slid the remote within reach. He would have balked if she produced a summoning bell.

"I can't make some fancy French quiche or whatever, but I can follow an easy recipe," she explained as she bounded into the kitchen. "I've changed since I moved to LA, Steve, since we found out the truth about Mom."

"I can see that," he admitted as he listened to Mary tinkering in the kitchen. "It's awesome, Mary."

He fell asleep to the sounds of companionship and compassion, and awoke to a steaming bowl of soup being carried into the living room. He wasn't remotely hungry, but hadn't had more than little cups of Jello and ice chips since being admitted to the hospital, and knew he needed to eat. The soup was delicious, over-peppered just like he liked it. The broth settled his stomach and chicken offered some fortification that he'd missed over the past three days.

"This is delicious, really." Steve said when he was done. "And I'm not just saying that because I haven't had food in three days, either."

"Don't sound so surprised. I can do things, ya know. I might not be able to fly helicopters or hold my breath for nine minutes, but I can follow simple directions."

Steve chewed carefully on the left side of his face. "Of course you can."

Mary sat the bowl on the table, and sat down next to Steve, casually close with her head resting on his shoulder. It was summoned up flashes of how they were as kids—when they got along at least. They would almost huddled together, under blankets or in tents, with flashlights and secrets.

It had been too long since he felt his sister's hair fuzzing under his chin.

"I want to see Danny," Steve whispered, minutes later.

Mary nodded against his shoulder, and spread a blanket over her brother as he yawned with a hiss. "You need to rest and so does he."

Steve shook his head, closing his eyes when the room lurched and bobbled. "He saved my life, and he's in a hospital room all alone. Don't you get how screwed up that is? "

"He's not alone. Your team is checking up on him and so is the British lady…Rachel, and that doctor who kept visiting. You were exhausted just from the trip home. We'll give it some more time."

"Tomorrow," Steve said fiercely.

Mary's voice was thin and tremulous when she spoke. Somehow Steve's eyes had closed again, but he found it was easier and less painful to keep them closed. "How many times have you been hurt somewhere with no one there to take care of you?"

There were, of course, far too many instances to count, too many memories of waking up bandaged and broken with no one there to hold his hand or make him soup or reassure him that he was okay. He'd choked on the smell of antiseptic with the bombs thudding in the distance. He draped his arm around his sister, and turned on the television and never answered.

-5-0-

Danny was pretty sure his innocent crush on Kono would always remain just that after his recent hospital stay. She had witnessed her senior detective rambling deliriously, nearly choke on his own phlegm, and whimper piteously from pain in his shoulder and lungs. Sure, he had saved Steve's life, but the aftermath had completely demolished the smooth operator image he'd worked so hard to maintain.

Even so, he pushed his drooping eyes open to fully appreciate Kono's lithe form as she leaned over at the waist, taking the cushions off the creeky couch to fold out the bed. The Five-0 rookie was wearing purple board shorts, the strings of her metallic gold bikini poking out at the hips. She had an old tattered t-shirt on over the green bikini top. With her hair piled on top of her head and glittered flip-flops, she looked young, harried and somehow impossibly beautiful in the half-light of Danny's pathetic, unclean apartment.

He leaned against the kitchen counter, breathing hard and rumbly, and counting the seconds until he could take his drugs and go to sleep. Kono made the bed with care, making a welcoming nest of blankets and helped him ease into it. Danno moved to lay back, feeling beads of perspiration oozing through his pores, but Kono snagged his shirt with one hand and plucked his discharge papers out the bag of supplies from the hospital. "Hang on, Danny, one minute. It says…yeah, I have to hit you."

"…like I haven't been through enough?" Danny groaned, delighted by Kono's breathy laughter.

Kono nearly straddled him on the mattress and leaned him forward in a loose sort of hug. Distantly, he felt him untie the hospital gown he was still wearing and lightly pummel his back and sides as the doctor had demonstrated before his release. It was supposed to break up the remaining gunk in his lungs and aid in his recovery from pneumonia. And Danny had done all of this before, the sickness and the drugs and the pain. At least this time, there was a good reason, and not just his body betraying him.

Kono smelled like the ocean, like salt and seaweed and perpetual bobbing blue. It was too close, too soon and too painful. Danny hadn't had time to process any of it, barely remembered seeing some black-and-blue, weepy version of his partner in the hospital. And he was almost certain he'd hallucinated that. He sniffled, hissing at the dull stab of pain in his lungs as he tried to breathe deeply, and shrank away.

"What's going on? Did I hit your shoulder?"

Danny blinked the wetness away, feeling both claustrophobic and clingy. "You surfed this morning?"

"Before I picked you up…oh…shoot, I didn't think this through…" her face fell and she bit her lip a little guilty. "I smell, don't I?"

"Like a spring meadow," Danny said, averting his eyes.

Kono pulled back out of his space, and even with his fever, Danny missed the warmth of having her nearby. "It must have been horrible," Kono breathed.

Danny closed his eyes, feeling Steve's weight pressed against him, smelling fetid blood and hearing the rush of the water. "No, it was fabulous. I plan on doing it again tomorrow."

"Don't do that. Don't deflect. You can talk to me if you want."

Danny scoffed, forcing his eyes open and his lips into a soft smile. "You've been hovering at my bedside for nearly a week…don't need to be my shrink too. You've already done too much."

She rolled her eyes and traveled the three steps into the kitchen. "You save Steve's life and somehow me reading magazines while you slept and taking you home from the hospital is too much. Shut up, Danny."

He bit his lip, feeling his body aching for sleep, but knowing that nightmares would greet him with a lurid smile and a hellacious grip. Kono brought him a pitcher of water, a fully charged cell phone, a stack of magazines, the remote control, and a bucket in case he felt queasy (as he suspected the green pills made him). "I gotta go shower and check in at work. Rachel said she'd bring you dinner, and Chin's going to stay with you tonight. I'll see you tomorrow. Oh, Dr. Jensen said you can call her if you need anything. Her number's already in the new phone. I think she likes you, _brah_."

Danny scoffed as he settled into his pillows, flexing the fingers of his bad arm. "Nah, doc has her latex-lovin' heart set on SuperSeal. I'm just a means to an end."

Kono brushed back his mussy hair, and pinned him with those expressive eyes. "Some people like you, Danny. You just need to open your eyes and notice it."

-5-0-

Danny was treading water again, struggling in a sea of cotton waves and dry water.

He opened his eyes to amber light cutting stripes on his scuffed, neglected wood floors. He pulled in a deep breath, ignoring the cutting pain in his lungs and tried to blow it out, but instead he coughed, gunky and wet. Danny was drowning, in his own living room, in liquid terror and mucous and vomit. He leaned over the bed, on his inflamed, immobilized shoulder, and threw up in the perfectly placed bucket. With a strangled grunt, he blindly reached for the phone, dialing not the doctor Kono had placed on speed-dial, but the only voice that would calm his racing heart and silence the nightmare-induced scream in his head.

But there was no answer. And this time, it was Danny who was stranded.

He braced his good arm against the mattress and pushed upward, hard. He was still alarmingly weak and his arm shook as he levered himself off the mattress just enough to flip over. In the half-light of the room, Danny laboriously untangled himself from the sheets and blankets and gingerly placed his feet on the floor.

The trauma of what he endured was settling in, putting down roots. And Danny couldn't fight it. In the hospital, he'd been drugged to his eyeballs, too out of it to dream or to think. And now that the good hospital drugs were out of his system, and he could do nothing but think and analyze and obsess.

There was an impatient knock at the door, and Danny struggled to his feet to answer it. He didn't care who it was, even if it was the annoying neighbor next door who kept trying to give him one of her cats. The door rattled thunderously, wood splintered. He watched, unflinchingly, as the deadbolt and the wood attached to the doorjamb seemingly exploded in a tail of dust and impatience. The now thoroughly-ruined door swung open. Steve clamored in, breathing hard, half his face painted in eggplant purple and covered in…Batman sunglasses.

Danny couldn't summon the energy to laugh, but he felt it there, blooming in his belly. He smiled, unworried about the broken door or his diminishing dignity.

"Your superhero complex is really bad for doors."

"When someone knocks," Steve said, panting a little, you answer the damn door."

Danny gestured to his immobilized arm. "Little tied up here, Steven."

Steve leaned against the jamb for a minute before he ventured inside. He floundered for several seconds, trying to wedge the bits of door and wood shut. Relenting, he angled a chair under the door knob to keep it shut.

He turned around stared at his partner for a long moment, silent and appraising. Danny nearly blushed, nearly broke eye contact. He signed up to save the lives of strangers, and now he felt profound honor in rescuing some like Steve—a Navy man, and someone who would probably go on to save hundreds others. He was proud that he could return the favor.

The silence spread between them until Danny's lungs seized and his chest burned and rattled with hacking coughs. It was disgusting and embarrassing, but there nautical exploits had obliterated the normal boundaries of partners. Steve gently took Danny's arm and led him into his own horrendous nook of a bathroom, all avocado tile and sun-faded linoleum. Steve helped Danny sit on the toilet and turned on the shower. He nudged the door shut and sat on the rim of the tub.

Steam wafted from the shower, fogging the mirror. It was close in the bathroom, Danny's knees inches away from Steve's.

His partner was staring at the bandage on his arm, stark white against the peeling crimson of his skin. "How'd you hurt your arm?"

Danny cleared his throat with effort and tried not to think too much. "Which one?"

"Cute, Danno. The bandaged one."

"Cut it on something," he said vaguely.

Steve plucked off his ridiculous sunglasses, and Danny was relieved to see that the swelling had drastically gone down in his face, even if the color had worsened. But both of Steve's blue eyes pinned him, and he was both elated and terrified.

"Danny, tell me what happened. It'll be better…if we…"

"What talk about it? I'm sorry, but this isn't an episode of Dr. Phil. And I'm not layin' on any couch."

Steve's lip curled. "But you sleep on the couch."

"Shut up." The steam rendered the room murky and humid, and it was helping. He found it easier to draw breath and to think. "You don't remember it, do you?"

"Nope. I have two days gone," his hands ghosted over his battered face. "They don't think it'll come back."

Danny's skin was sticky from the humidity, and the crackle of the shower was stirring up too close memories of hours in the water, the fluid uncertainty, and agony of drowning. Idly, he wondered how he'd live on an island surrounded by water, and if it would always be a trigger for him now. He wondered if five years from now he'd be able to shower or wash dishes without thinking about that day he'd spent adrift at sea.

"I cut it."

"Yeah, we know that, but how?"

"I cut it myself, with your butterfly knife. I was fading and we were drowning, and I needed the adrenaline," Danny shook his head. "It sounds like insane, but it made perfect sense then. I was delirious or something, wasn't thinking right. I did everything wrong."

Steve placed a hand on Danny's shoulder. "We're both sitting here, alive, so I think you did pretty good, especially considering I didn't even think you could swim."

"Proved you wrong, huh? I used to be a lifeguard in high school. I just never liked the ocean. And now I have about 500 reasons to hate it even more."

"You know I can't ever begin to thank you, Danny. You saved my life…and…"

He waved away the gratitude with the flick of a hand and a smile. "Last time you tried to do this, your started bawling like a girl at a Bieber concert. We'll just say you owe me one." He shifted on the edge of the tub and levered himself up.

The air on the other side of the door was dry and felt chilly on his feverish skin. Steve was quiet as he smoothed out the covers on the bed. Before Danny could climb in, though, Steve leaned down and pulled Danny into a loose, wooden facsimile of a hug. Like Danny was made of glass. He huffed and looped an arm around Steve's neck with a breathless fierceness that had nothing to do with his pneumonia. They were okay, and Danny needed to remember that.

"Thank you, Danny."

"Heh, thank the dolphins."

At Steve's bewildered expression, Danny burst into hoarse laughter.


End file.
